How do I decide if my business is even sellable in the first place?

A business is sellable if a buyer can reasonably expect to keep it running and profitable after you leave, and the honest way to test that is to look at it the way a buyer's advisors will during due diligence. That means checking whether your financial records are clean and explainable, whether your key contracts, leases, and licences can transfer or survive a change of ownership, whether revenue depends on a small handful of customers or on you personally, and whether the business runs on documented processes rather than know-how that only lives in your head.

None of these issues make a business unsellable outright — they mostly affect price, structure, and how long a buyer takes to get comfortable. A business that's genuinely too thin to survive without its owner, or that is losing money with no credible path back, is a harder sale, though not always an impossible one; it may just need real preparation first, or point toward a different kind of exit.

The most reliable way to get a clear-eyed answer is a preliminary review with a business lawyer and an accountant before you talk to any buyer, so you're working from an accurate picture of your own business rather than a guess.